Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Next, I met up with Bradan. He took me on a tour of the building, showing me all the weak spots he’d found just by quietly hanging around. “There are takeout delivery people coming and going all the time,” he told me. “And the reception staff just buzz them up without ID. Easiest thing in the world to just steal a uniform, or even get a job with one of those places for a day, and then stroll right up to Lorna’s floor and pull a gun out of the pizza box. Or I could just swipe an ID badge, look…” And he showed me the three he’d taken from people without them noticing. “I could get right up to the McBride offices, then wait until she’s on her own, like when she goes to the bathroom. Do it with a knife, put the body in a stall, I could be out of the building before anyone finds her.”
I turned to him, horrified. He gave me a helpless shrug: this is what you wanted.
I sighed and nodded, patting him on the back. This was what I’d wanted, for him to put all those years he’d spent as an assassin for the cult to good use, so we could plug the security holes. But it was still disconcerting to hear it. “Good job,” I told him. “I’ll talk to the security guards and tighten everything up.”
As we walked the rest of the way up to the penthouse, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. I could tell he was hurting. He’d been that way ever since we started Stormfinch, wracked with guilt over all the people he’d killed while he was brainwashed. I’d tried talking to him and so had Gabriel and his brother, Kian, but all we could offer was sympathy. We didn’t have any answers.
And then it hit me that maybe there was someone who did.
“Can you help Cal?” I asked Bradan. “I asked him to look for sniper spots.” Bradan nodded and I watched his retreating back, rubbing at my stubble. I hope this works.
I met up with Kian and he gave me a crash course on bodyguarding. We walked around the block with him as the bodyguard and me as the subject. “We turn the corner and I’m checking the windows of the building on our right,” Kian narrated. “Those two guys coming towards us in the crowd, the one on the left has something under his jacket. That van: why is it parked there? Are the guys unloading looking at what they’re doing or looking at us?”
I suddenly realized how much I’d been missing. “I should have called you in from the start,” I muttered.
“Yeah,” said Kian reproachfully. “You should have.” He glanced sideways at me. “You’ve really fallen for her, haven’t you?”
I looked away, not answering. Which was an answer in itself.
“I know a thing or two about falling for the person you’re guarding,” said Kian slowly. “You sure you’re doing the right thing, pushing her away?”
I scowled at the sidewalk and shook my head. “I can’t be with her.”
Kian let me cool down for half a block. Then he murmured, “I know a thing or two about losing people, too.”
I turned to him. “You gonna say something about moving on?” I said tightly. “Letting go?”
Kian looked at me sadly, which made me even madder. I didn’t want his sympathy. Didn’t deserve it. “No,” he said, and patted me on the back, and we carried on with the training.
Back at the penthouse, Colton was checking the doors and figuring out which locks and hinges needed to be upgraded. As a bounty hunter, he kicked down enough doors to know what would hold and what wouldn’t. Meanwhile, Gabriel was sitting on the couch with Erin’s laptop, checking each of the new cameras and sensors in turn.
I headed up to the roof and saw Cal and Bradan standing at the edge. Both had binoculars to their eyes and they were talking quietly as they looked at the roofs of neighboring buildings.
“I know what you mean,” Cal said. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about those kids in the SUV. And all the rest.”
“I keep thinking…they were someone’s brother,” Bradan said. “Or dad. Or son. And I just took them out of the world. I’m the reason they’re not there anymore. And I didn’t even know why, most of the time.”
I saw Cal’s massive body stiffen. “They never told me, either.” There was a long pause. “You know what Bethany told me? She said no one’s irredeemable.” He finally lowered the binoculars from his eyes and Bradan did, too. “She said you can’t change the past, you can only change what you are now.”
They looked at each other for a moment. Then they put the binoculars back to their eyes and went back to work.